Synopsis

Louisa Clark lives in a quaint town in the English countryside. With no clear direction in her life, the quirky and creative 26-year-old goes from one job to the next in order to help her tight-knit family make ends meet. Her normally cheery outlook is put to the test, however, when she faces her newest career challenge. Taking a job at the local "castle", she becomes caregiver and companion to Will Traynor, a wealthy young banker who became wheelchair bound in an accident two years prior, and whose whole world changed dramatically in the blink of an eye. No longer the adventurous soul he once was, the now cynical Will has all but given up. That is until Lou determines to show him that life is worth living. Embarking together on a series of adventures, both Lou and Will get more than they bargained for, and find their lives—and hearts—changing in ways neither one could have imagined.

We are in the heart of TV on DVD season with a dozen such releases on this week’s list. Unfortunately, while there are a few that are worth picking up, none of them have the extras needed to be Pick of the Week contenders. The biggest release of the week is The Jungle Book, which is one of the biggest hits of the year. I got a chance to review it, so you can compare my opinion to the critics. As for the best of the best, there weren’t a lot to choose from. In the end, I went with The Commitments, which is making its Blu-ray debut this week.
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Independence Day: Resurgence started its international run in first place with $102.1 million in 57 markets. That's the good news. That bad news is that its biggest market was China, where it only managed second place with $36.09 million, including previews. In most of the rest of the world, the film did no better than it did here, relative to the size of the market. South Korea helped it out with a first place, $5.45 million opening on 926 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $7.49 million. It opened in second place in the U.K. with $6.91 million in 610 theaters, which is no better than its opening here. The film cost a lot to make, so it needs to do better than this to be seen as a financial hit.
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Finding Dory started its international run in first place with $50.0 million in 29 markets. Its biggest market was China, where it earned second place with 18.15 million over the weekend and $18.18 million including previews. This is not a lot of money compared to last week's winner; however, China is not a market that is kind to animated films. Before this year, no animated movie had earned more than $100 million in China and the current record is held by Zootopia at $235.77 million. Zootopia only made $23.99 million during its opening weekend in China, so this isn't a bad start for Finding Dory. Additionally, Finding Dory doubled Zootopia's opening in Australia with $7.63 million on 524 screens. It also performed very well in Argentina ($3.5 million) and in Russia ($3.25 million on 1,220 screens). It is still too early to tell if Finding Dory will top $1 billion worldwide, but this start gives box office watchers a reason to be optimistic.
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As anticipated, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist led the weekend box office with ease pulling in $40.41 million. The second place film, Warcraft, earned 40% less. Now You See Me 2 only managed third place and it will need a lot of help to break even. The overall box office was $152 million, which is 13% more than last weekend. However, it was also more than $100 million less than this weekend last year. Normally a 44% collapse like this only happens when there is a misalignment in holidays. In this case, it's because of Jurassic World. 2016 is still ahead of 2015 by a substantial margin at $4.76 billion to $4.54 billion. 2016's lead is now 4.8%, more than a full percentage point lower than it was this time last week, but hopefully Finding Dory will help prevent a similar descent this week.
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If this weekend is as bad as some fear it will be, it could begin to cause a panic among some studio executives. Two of the three wide releases are sequels and there are some who expect both to fail to match their predecessors by significant margins. If this happens, we will have six sequels failing to match expectations during a four-week stretch. Worse still, there are more than six additional sequels left to open before the end of summer. (Finding Dory seems safe, but the rest could flop as well.) The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist should come out on top at the box office, but with less than the original made. Now You See Me 2 will likely continue Lionsgate's losing streak. Meanwhile, Warcraft could do well enough in China to justify a sequel, which is great news, because it will likely bomb here. This weekend last year, Jurassic World opened with $208 million. There's no way the entire box office will make that much this year. 2016 is going to get pummeled in the year-over-year comparison.
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Two of the three new wide releases failed to make much of an impact at the box office over the weekend. This includes the overall number one film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. It earned $35.32 million during its opening weekend, which isn't as bad as some feared, but it is also well below its predecessor's opening. Me Before You did very well in a counter-programming role with $18.72 million. Finally, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping barely topped the Mendoza Line. Overall, the box office earned $133 million, which is 19% lower than last weekend, but that is an acceptable post-holiday decline. Compared to last year, the box office this year was lower, but by less than 0.1%. Year-to-date, 2016's lead has grown to $250 million or 5.9% at $4.56 billion to $4.30 billion.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows will top the box office chart this weekend with a respectable $35.25 million, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. The weekend as a whole is looking fairly ordinary though, thanks in large part to the muted debuts of X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass last weekend, and their predictably-steep post-Memorial-Day declines. Apocalypse is off 66% this weekend to $22.325 million and $116.5 million in total. Alice will eke out $10.7 million or so for a two-week total of $50.8 million. Overall, the market will be down about 1% from the same weekend last year, and 20% below the comparable weekend from 2014.
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Oh no. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows earned the best Thursday night previews, but did so with just $2 million. That's a mere fraction of the $4.5 million Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and could spell real trouble for the film's box office chances. The reviews are a little better than its predecessor's reviews were, but it is also a sequel and those tend to have shorter legs. It might struggle to top $30 million and that means first place isn't a sure thing anymore.
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May was great, as long as you don't compare it to last May. Captain America: Civil War was a monster hit and is closing in on $400 million, while both X-Men: Apocalypse and The Angry Birds Movie will earn over $100 million. Looking ahead, every week in June, there is one movie that should top $100 million; however, only Finding Dory is expected to make more than $200 million. In fact, that film is expected to make close to $400 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. Last June, there were two monster hits, Inside Out and Jurassic World, plus one $100 million hit, Spy. I don't see how 2016 will top that. Even if every film with a shot at $100 million gets to that milestone, 2016 still might not top last year's pace. Fortunately, 2016 does have a large lead and that could be enough to keep 2016 ahead of 2015's pace in the year-over-year competition. It could be really close at the end of the month, on the other hand.
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Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of The Confirmation on Blu-ray, plus a randomly selected previously reviewed movie.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a Frankenprize, consisting of two previously reviewed movies.
Finally, we will be choosing an entrant from the group of people who haven't won, or haven't won recently, and they will win another Frankenprize, consisting of two previously reviewed movies.

Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Home Media Magazine.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

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